since when is it a requirement to win with scrubs to be great ? (the most common knock on russell)

since when is it a requirement to win without a superstar sidekick to be considered great ? (the biggest and most common knock on shaq)

You've jumped to conclusions... Do me a favor. If in the future you aren't sure of the point someone is trying to make or you lack an understanding of where they're coming from, ask. So many of the disagreements on this board originate from miscommunication or posters' tendencies to jump to conclusions.

I never said that it was a requirement for a star to play with scubs and win in order to be considered great. If you're going to address my posts, don't ascribe to me the assertions of others... and there's also no need to exaggerate. It is important, however, to take a player's accomplishments in context. Bill Russel had excellent players around him when he won those championships. He had an awesome team built around him. As a result, while his accomplishments are indeed outstanding, they aren't as outstanding as some would make them out to be.

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russell won with HOfers, but some of those HOf are there because of the rings they won, go check kc jones numbers, the guy has career robert horry numbers, the supporting casts changed, cousy left, and yet russell kept on winning, the 2 years after russell retired the celtics won 34 and 44 games and failed to even make the playoffs, so stop trying to diminish his greatness, he made the difference, he made the celtics the greatest dynasty in proffesional sports history, not vice versa.

The key word is "some." However, many of those HOF players have reached that distinction in their own right. Was Russel the anchor of those teams? Yes... it would be foolish for anyone to state otherwise, but not all accomplishments carry the same weight across ERAs...

If we were to put Russel in today's era, he'd likely be a great rebounder and defender... but he'd likely be an even poorer offensive player today than he was back then. If Russel played out his entire career in this era as opposed to his, he wouldn't be considered as great as he was back then, and while a great defensive player and rebounder, a premium is put on offense in today's league, so I don't think he would be considered the best player in the league today.

Yes, but having two important players, even if one is way more important than the other, retiring at the same time makes a bigger impact than if only one retired.

What would have happened to the Bulls in 94 if Jordan and Pippen both retired?

You make an excellent point. In 94, the Bulls won 55 games I believe, and were a poor call away from the conference finals... If the Bulls had lost Pippen that season, it's likely that they would have done poorly. But I can guarantee you that if Pippen has missed the season, most, if not the entire record drop would have been attributed to the departure of Jordan and many people have discounted Pippen.

If we were to put Russel in today's era, he'd likely be a great rebounder and defender... but he'd likely be an even poorer offensive player today than he was back then. If Russel played out his entire career in this era as opposed to his, he wouldn't be considered as great as he was back then, and while a great defensive player and rebounder, a premium is put on offense in today's league, so I don't think he would be considered the best player in the league today.

o well if you wanna buy the wilt hype be my guest scoring a bunch of points against undersized stiffs doesnt impress me.

the wilt hype? ask anyone who knows anything about the history of the nba, and they'll tell you wilt is top 2 all time

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which is more than robinson has

robinson should have won 2 aswell in '90, and '95. also robinson was second most valuable in '91, '94, and '96. besides shaq's mvp seasons in '00, and '01, shaq was only second most valuable in one season, compared with robinsons 3 ('95)

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yeah, sure robinson's pathetic 18 ppg playoffs career average would do better than shaq

lol..this is irrelevant, but you'll use it because you can't reply to what i said because you've got nothing, so you bring up crap. robinson was averaging 26 points, 10 rebounds, and 5 assists in the playoffs the year orlando got swept by chicago, so you don't bring up what his playoff career totals were when you're arguing what he would've totalled that year against chicago. lets go by age, when robinson was 34 he was getting 24 points with 14 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 steals, and 3 blocks in the playoffs, lets see if shaq does that this post season..if he makes it ofcourse

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so he was injured 5 minutes after shaq left ? dude got injured 3 or 4 years after shaq left, in the couple seasons post-shaq he simply was exposed as the overrated coattail rider he always was.

haha obviously you haven't been watching nba long. quote off the magic's website: "when Hardaway was lost to injury early in the season. Hardaway's knee was one of many ailments that sidelined Magic starters for 80 games"

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that means shaq lead his team to 3 titles and Mr robinson to zero, yet robinson >> shaq ? yeah, that makes sense

again, not replying to what i said, instead coming back with crap thats already been handled by me

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wrong, he never gets past chicago even if he makes the finals

regular season record for most wins in a season, and doesn't lose a game in the playoffs

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lol, he sure dominated the '95 western conference finals, soft pansy was exposed against a team that won 15 less games than they did.

he was outplayed by olajuwon. soft pansy? how was he a soft pansy? that houston team was destined to win the championship that year, and showed it by defeating not only the spurs, but the 60 win jazz, the 59 win suns, and the 57 win magic, it was only a pity hakeem couldn't bring his team to win any more than a pitiful 47 games with the superstar of clyde drexler playing with him :

the wilt hype? ask anyone who knows anything about the history of the nba, and they'll tell you wilt is top 2 all time

wrong, Mj, kareem, magic, take your pick

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Originally Posted by Shep

when robinson was 34 he was getting 24 points with 14 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 steals, and 3 blocks in the playoffs, lets see if shaq does that this post season..if he makes it ofcourse

the only thing you are proving here is that robinson's longevity was greater than shaq's which i'll concede, and that he had a prime tim duncan to lead him to titles, which i'll concede as well

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Originally Posted by Shep

regular season record for most wins in a season, and doesn't lose a game in the playoffs

there there nostradamus :

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Originally Posted by Shep

he was outplayed by olajuwon. soft pansy? how was he a soft pansy? that houston team was destined to win the championship that year, and showed it by defeating not only the spurs, but the 60 win jazz, the 59 win suns, and the 57 win magic, it was only a pity hakeem couldn't bring his team to win any more than a pitiful 47 games with the superstar of clyde drexler playing with him :

a pity ? the regular season doesnt mean SHYT, it doesnt matter if hakeem won 47 games, because HE WON THE TITLE, period, hakeem proved the whole world how HE was the best player in the league in jordan's abscene, its a pity that Mvp couldn't even MAKE the finals after winning 62 games in the meaningless regular season : watching him trying to say he defended hakeem "pretty well" in the postgame conferences was the icing in the cake

so 20/10 is dominant ? specially if you shoot antione walker percentages, hakeem averaged 33 ppg in the playoff run in 1995, THAT is dominant, shaq averaged 30.7 ppg in 00 and 30.5 ppg in the '01 playoffs, THAT is dominant, not some pathetic 20ppg/40% performances, i guess ewing averaging 18 ppg/39% in the finals vs hakeem was dominant too ? : kobe's 22ppg/36% vs detroit in '04 was dominant as hell man !!

I make it a rule not to strictly rank players that I didn't see in their prime in real time. It's limiting for sure, but in my conversations with otherwise knowledgeable fans that happen to be younger than me it became clear that it's very difficult to grasp what a player was without seeing them in their era. So I rely on the opinions of people that watched a lot of basketball in the sixties, or commentaries from such people. (In the case of centers most spectators from the sixties believe that Russell was the best center they've seen. It may not be an overwhelming majority, but it's a strong enough sentiment for me to defer to.)

Another point... often I catch myself thinking "what would this player be like in today's game?" Usually I think that a typical player from the sixties is less of everything--less athletic, less skilled, less tall, etc--than a typical player from today's game. But that question should be reversed as well, "what would a player from today be like in the sixties?", and implicit in this question are the futher questions, "what would a player from today look like without the benefit of all the players that went before him?" (think Kobe without Jordan); "what would a player from today look like without today's training methods" (would Ben Wallace be able to play in the NBA without a weight room and "supplements"?); "what would a player from today look like without all the youth leagues and summer camps?"; "what would a player from today look like if they had to wear Chucks?" etc.

In short, players today have technical advantages that old-timers didn't have. It's like comparing software that runs on a Core Two Duo to punch card programs of the fifties and sixties.

did bill russell play against anyone even remotely close in stature to him besides chamberlain? all i've seen him do is block shots? why is he considered so good? maybe for his era, but in today's game? better than duncan, hakeem? are u friggin' kidding me?

did bill russell play against anyone even remotely close in stature to him besides chamberlain? all i've seen him do is block shots? why is he considered so good? maybe for his era, but in today's game? better than duncan, hakeem? are u friggin' kidding me?

No, and you shouldn't be even considering Duncan near Russell all time if you're educated.

since when is it a requirement to win with scrubs to be great ? (the most common knock on russell)

It's not but when you play with a near consummate team that has 6 hall of famers (excluding Rusell!), you can't expect him to get all the credit. Personally I am not that impressed by Bill Russell. The league had like 8 teams back then, much better shot at winning a championship in a pool of 8 than a pool of 20+ like Kareem/Shaq/Hakeem did. And we all know about the competition level and inflated numbers players posted back then...in fact 7 out of 8 teams had a player averaging 13+ rebounds (in 1960).

The best of all time! He won lots of championships and actually this is the ultimate goal of playing a game, no?

I think none of us support a team because one player earns a lot of money, but because we want our team to win. So, from a NBAfan point of view, Bill Russel WAS the best player of the best team that existed!

lol what? i proved that he had a prime duncan to lead him to titles by saying shaq at age 34 is half the player robinson was at 34?:

longevity son, longevity, robinson was a more durable player than shaq due to his superior work ethics, however he didn't have a better career or peak.

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Originally Posted by Shep

heh, obviously hakeem thought that in '92 when they missed the playoffs :

1997 david can share his mind here

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Originally Posted by Shep

he proved he had a freak playoff run. robinson was the best player in the nba in both '94 and '95, and jordan wasn't even the best player when he left, hakeem was

this is total bs, robinson the best in 94 ? hakeem was mvp, dpoy, nba champion and finals mvp, 95 ? you have a case with david having the best record and the mvp, but 94 was hakeem's season. this is all about LEADING your team to titles charley boy, hakeem did, shaq did, robinson didn't.

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Originally Posted by Shep

so in your mind the only thing that you have to as a DOMINANT PLAYER if to score 30? heh, i guess carmelo is the most dominant in the game right now then huh?

in my mind dominant is dominant, shaq dominated, duncan in that freak playoff run in 03 when he averaged 25/15/5/4blk dominated, hakeem, mj, shaq, duncan all had memorable playoff runs that instantly come to mind when you think of them, robinson didnt, and no, 20/10/41% isn't dominant, in last years playoffs shaq averaged 19/10/2blk/61% shooting, i guess he dominated ?

longevity son, longevity, robinson was a more durable player than shaq due to his superior work ethics, however he didn't have a better career or peak

you're half right: shaq's peak in '00 was slightly better than robinson's peak in '94, but robinson had the better career

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1997 david can share his mind here

1997. the spurs finish with the third worst record in the nba (20-62), the worst record in franchise history, complete the steepest one year decline in nba history, and david robinson plays only 6 games, coincidence? i think not. olajuwon played 70 games in 1992 and he couldn't bring his team to even make the playoffs with a roster as good if not better than any team robinson had up until 1998

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this is total bs, robinson the best in 94 ? hakeem was mvp, dpoy, nba champion and finals mvp

granted, olajuwon was the mvp and righfully so. however robinson lead the spurs to a 3-2 record against houston and lead league in: scoring, player wins, win shares, efficiency, usage rate, and free throws made and attempted. olajuwon outrebounded robinson 11.9 to 10.7, but robinson recorded 4.8 assists (how often do you hear about a center averaging 4.8 assists?) compared to olajuwons 3.6. while houston only won 3 more games than san antonio with their second best player (thorpe) being better than san antionio's (rodman), third best player (maxwell) being better than san antonio's (anderson), fourth best player (horry) being better than san antonio's (ellis), and fifth best player (smith) being better than san antonio's (del negro)

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in my mind dominant is dominant

well, atleast thats settled

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in last years playoffs shaq averaged 19/10/2blk/61% shooting, i guess he dominated ?